The Union government has unveiled a three-bill legislative package that could fundamentally reshape political representation in India. The package, comprising the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirty-First Amendment) Bill, 2026, the Delimitation Bill, 2026, and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2025, will be introduced during a Special Session of Parliament starting April 16.
Together, these bills aim to restart India’s stalled delimitation process, lift the decades-long freeze on seat readjustment, significantly expand the Lok Sabha and then operationalise women’s reservation in legislatures. Though these are the Union government’s stated objectives, the opposition, especially political parties based in south India, has repeatedly pointed out that the bills were being pushed without consultations.
Further, the political parties have argued that the Union government has been using women’s reservation as an excuse to start the delimitation exercise. The southern states fear that a delimitation exercise will reduce the percentage of seats for them and, consequently, alter political representation and cause further disadvantage to them.
At the centre of these proposals is the removal of the constitutional freeze imposed in 1976, which had prevented the reallocation of seats and redrawing of constituency boundaries based on updated population data. By allowing delimitation to proceed based on “such Census” as Parliament may determine, the legislative package sets the stage for a major reshaping of both State Assemblies and the Lok Sabha.